Lophatherum, Job's Tears and Corn Kernel Soup

Why people make this soup

Some little ones are perfectly fine in the daytime but cry through the night, leaving exhausted parents. In food-therapy thinking, infant night crying often falls into two patterns. One is a cold, weak spleen-and-stomach pattern — pale face, cool limbs, a cold tummy, loose stool, clear urine. The other is a “heart-channel heat” pattern — flushed face and red lips, restlessness, dry stool, scant dark urine. This particular soup is for the heat pattern: it is traditionally used to clear heart fire, ease the flow of urine, and settle that restless heat.

Method

1. Rinse all the ingredients.
2. Add 1.2 L of water and simmer about 45 minutes, reducing to roughly 600 ml.
3. Serve. The 2 bowls are a child’s daily portion, split over the day.

Nourilo’s Tips

This soup also helps irritable, easily-angered children of a few years old. Fresh corn kernels (su li) are available at Chinese or Asian grocers; if you can’t find them, just use 1 ear of corn instead.